which may be directed against them from the other Parliament. This brings us to the question of conflict between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and our theory clears it. The difficulty in this case arises from the circumstance that the individuals who legislate in spiritual matters are not the same as those who legislate in temporal matters. This difficulty would have been obviated had the plan we formerly alluded to been adopted—that is to say, had the clergy been incorporated or represented in the one parliamentary council of the nation. But the advantages of the other system are so great that it is better to run the risk of a conflict between jurisdictions, which may not occur even once in a hundred years, than dispense with a separate legislature for spiritual affairs, consisting, in some degree at least, of different individuals, and conducted according to different forms. But when the jurisdictions do clash, what plan would we propose for their extrication? We have considered this subject very carefully, and under every possible aspect, and we are satisfied that there is only one mode of extrication. And it is this—that the two houses should meet on common ground, and there deliberate on the matter in dispute, and decide upon it by vote. We would revert, in short, to the plan by which all conflict of jurisdiction would have been originally prevented—we mean the incorporation of the members of Assembly with the members of Parliament. This, the only method by which all dispute about jurisdiction would have been prevented, is, in our opinion, the only method by which it can be constitutionally settled, when it does arise. The circumstance that different individuals sit in the two Houses is a mere accident of the constitution: the principle of the constitution is, that one and the same body sits in the General Assembly and in the House of Commons. But this accident is such as to prevent either House from enjoying a supreme ascendency when the question of jurisdiction occurs. Doubtless this accident is a slight deviation from the letter of the constitution. But the consequences of this deviation are not to be corrected by the House of Commons ignoring the General Assembly, or treating it as an inferior court: for the state must be presumed to have authorised the arrangement by which the supreme civil court for ecclesiastical affairs (i.e., itself, as the General Assembly) was permitted to consist of individuals different from those who con-
